Bay water report card mixed

Although more than half of monitoring stations in Cape Cod Bay showed improvement in environmental conditions, 40 percent are reporting declines, according to the Cape Cod Bay Monitoring Program.

Patriot Staff

Although more than half of monitoring stations in Cape Cod Bay showed improvement in environmental conditions, 40 percent are reporting declines, according to the Cape Cod Bay Monitoring Program.

The program, part of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, said the degradation is occurring mostly at inshore and near-shore stations.

The number and extent of invasive species in the Bay is on the rise, and detectable levels of pharmaceutical compounds were found at four of five sampling sites in 2010.

The report, available on-line at http://www.coastalstudies.org/images/HowsOurBay-WEBFINAL-refedit-1.pdf, is packed with information about the resource. Cape Cod Bay has about 600 square miles of surface water, 57 percent of the state’s total general shoreline, and a watershed of 546 square miles. Surface water moves counterclockwise, and it can take about a month for a full exchange of water in the Bay.

“By national standards, Cape Cod Bay is still a relatively healthy ecosystem,” the report concludes. But it also notes, “Despite this relatively optimistic assessment of the water quality of Cape Cod Bay when compared against the national standards, there are warning signs.” These include declines at 21 of the 54 stations analyzed.

A list of threats to the Bay’s overall health include increases in year-round population and housing, with concomitant rises in wastewater outputs and new impervious surfaces. Citing the Center for Watershed Protection’s standards, the report notes that Brewster’s Cape Cod Bay subwatershed falls within the group’s “threatened” category due to the amount of impervious surface coverage.